


Turning Point

by manamune



Series: Intersection [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Feelings Realization, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Parallel Universes, Pining, Slow Build, Sparring but make it romantic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25604455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manamune/pseuds/manamune
Summary: Lance managed to save Keith's life by dragging him into his lion a second before he took his last breath. Keith wakes up, and Lance thinks that's going to be the end of that; now they'll be able to go back to kicking Galra ass, right?Except then it turns out the Keith that woke up is from another universe where he and Lance are dating, and all hell breaks loose. (Mostly in Lance's heart.)
Relationships: Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Intersection [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1855810
Comments: 32
Kudos: 211





	Turning Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you don't need to have read the other fic in this series (crossroads) to understand this one, but both fics will make more sense if you read the other.
> 
> this fic follows the canon set by crossroads. as that fic was written before season 2 of vld came out, there's some details which aren't canon compliant with the other seasons. but it's mostly compliant and i tried not to create details that were far out of the realm of the show's canon.

Keith woke up screaming.

Or, more accurately, Lance woke up to Keith screaming, which made him scream in turn, because he was conditioned to associate Keith raising his voice with very bad things.

“What the fuck!” Lance yelled, sounding as frazzled as he felt. He jumped up from his spot by Keith’s healing pod. Rubbing his temple, he refocused his vision; he can’t remember passing out, but he did remember how he’d been awake for at least thirty hours. So that answered that.

More screaming. Oh, right. Keith.

Keith was staring at him with _huge_ , dark eyes, his palms pressed to his side of the glass of the pod. Lance fumbled with the electronic key and opened it up. He wasn’t sure if he was _allowed_ to do that without Allura or someone supervising him, but they had given him the key in the first place, and he couldn’t very well leave Keith inside the pod when he was awake!

“La—” Keith started to say his name and broke into a fit of coughs, keeling over.

“Whoa, whoa.” Lance slipped one arm under Keith’s, holding him up. Keith’s skin was burning hot, and Lance would’ve flinched if he hadn’t been so focused on helping Keith. “You were out for a while, buddy. Be careful.”

Keith lifted his head, his eyes darting frantically between Lance and everything else in the room. 

“Lance,” Keith repeated himself, properly this time. His voice was scratchy and low from not talking for so long. Lance held onto him tighter.

“Yeah? You need to lie down more, even though you’re out of the pod, you’re still injured. Do you want water? I can go get some—”

“ _Lance_ ,” Keith said, and the urgency of which he said Lance’s name made him pause mid-speech. “Where am I?”

“Um, the medbay?” Lance answered, and there was a pull of anxiety in his stomach. Why did Keith look so worried? He was alive, that was plenty to celebrate. “Hey, you’re safe, I swear. Allura said you’ll be fine, and...”

Lance didn’t get to finish his sentence before Keith crumpled to the ground, barely missing smashing head on the cold floor by the fact Lance scrambled to catch him _just_ in time.

Well, shit. That couldn’t be good. With one hand, Lance tried to find his pager, and with the other, he laid Keith on his back. His heart was pounding so loudly that he was almost glad Keith wasn’t awake to make fun of him for it, because Keith _always_ seemed to know when Lance was nervous. 

“Yo,” Pidge said from the other end of the line, not sounding particularly enthused to hear from him. He glanced at his watch. Two in the afternoon in Earth time, which was prime sleeping time for them normally. Ouch.

“Uh, Keith is awake, so I let him out of the pod. And then he passed out like two seconds later. He’s still breathing, and he seems fine, but...”

“What did you do?” Pidge groaned. “I don’t think he can be ‘fine’ and also pass out! I’m coming right now with Allura! Don’t let him move.”

“Did you not hear the part where I said he passed out? How can he move—Hey, wait, I didn’t do anything! I resent that accusa—” Pidge cut the line off and Lance groaned, sitting down with his legs crossed beside Keith’s unconscious body. He was breathing normally, so Lance wasn’t too worried. His injuries hadn’t been that bad in the first place.

Lance was more concerned about how shocked Keith looked when he woke up. They would definitely be talking about that. Or, well, Shiro and Keith would talk about it, Allura and Pidge would pitch in, and Lance and Hunk would exchange glances with each other while the others argued.

He knew that Keith had thought he was essentially going into a suicide mission, but... was he disappointed that he was alive? Did he think he was in the afterlife right now? He wished he could peek into Keith’s thoughts.

“You’ll be fine,” Lance assured Keith’s unconscious body, stroking his wet black hair. Those words felt fake even to his own ears, though, so he just shut up, stopped thinking about it, and waited for the others to arrive.

“All of his vitals are normal, albeit he has a slight fever,” Allura said twenty minutes later, while they all peered at the machine that absolutely no one in the room understood except her and Pidge.

“And his blood pressure.” Shiro pointed at some squiggly line on the screen. Okay, scratch that. Allura, Pidge, and Shiro.

“Isn’t that line for his pulse? It’s moving pretty quickly,” Hunk commented, his eyebrows etched in concern.

“Okay, does everyone understand how to read this thing except me?!” Lance groaned, squinting at the screen. Nope, he didn’t understand, no matter how hard he stared at it. The monitor was in some language that he was pretty sure none of them knew. This is what Lance got for dozing off during their initial space-first aid lesson last year. Then again, Allura _had_ asked him if he could read the machine, and he _had_ lied and said yes, so it was his fault. Still, he didn’t like being left out!

Notwithstanding that, now that Shiro and Hunk had pointed out those lines, he saw they were going up and down pretty rapidly. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew that couldn’t be good.

Gracefully ignoring him, Allura smiled and shook her head. “They’re both within reasonable levels, though we’ll keep an eye on them, of course. I know it looks bad, but it’s normal to have some fluctuation there when coming out of the healing chamber. His body is likely also re-adjusting to being outside of the chamber and having weight again. When he wakes up, we can ask him how he feels.”

“Knowing Keith, even if he did feel bad still, he wouldn’t tell us,” Pidge grumbled. Lance nodded sagely in agreement. That did sound like Keith.

“No, he’ll understand the situation. He wouldn’t lie about that, it’d just inconvenience us,” Shiro said.

They didn’t have much time to talk about it, since Keith opened his eyes a few moments later, staring blankly at the ceiling before sitting up stiffly. His eyes immediately found Lance’s, and Lance coughed into his arm and looked away. 

Keith had that kind of piercing stare where it seemed like he was staring right through you. Or right at you, depending on how you looked at it. Either way, Lance did not like being on the receiving end of it when the mood of the room was so tense.

Fortunately, Keith looked at Shiro, then, and then Allura and Coran, who waved brightly at him. Finally, he observed Pidge and Hunk, eyeing them up and down. 

“Keith,” Allura said, her hands placed on her lap, though her voice betrayed her happiness at seeing him awake. “You’ve been out for four days. How are you feeling?”

“I...” Keith glanced back at her, and he didn’t seem to understand her question, because he didn’t answer. He opened his mouth, and then closed it again. “This is a... ship,” Keith said carefully, and Lance followed his gaze to the windows at the back of the medbay, showing only darkness and a few multicoloured stars in a far-off galaxy.

Allura tilted her head and cast a worried glance at Shiro. He was hiding his concern well, but Lance saw how he bit his lip momentarily. 

“Yes,” Allura said. “Do you remember what happened, Keith?”

Lance shivered, and he felt Hunk do the same beside him. _He_ remembered what happened, though he had tried really, really hard not to, over the past few days.

Keith’s practically lifeless body, floating through space, barely holding on and choking on the lack of air. The flashes of light near them, sending sparks and fire between them, burning Keith’s suit. His pathetic gasps as he was dragged into Lance’s Lion. Lance hurriedly ripping off Keith’s helmet and giving him CPR, holding his fingers over Keith’s pulse and praying to every god there was that he’d feel it jump again. Which it did, but only after Lance had expanded a healthy amount of tears.

Yeah, he remembered, alright. He hoped Keith didn’t remember, because shit, that had to be at least as traumatizing for him as it was for Lance to watch. At least he hadn’t been awake to see Lance cry like an idiot.

“Uh...” Keith shook his head. “I’m sorry, my head... hurts, a lot.”

“It’s okay, Keith.” Shiro moved to Keith’s side in an instant and gently pushed him down, until his back hit the bed. “You should keep resting for now. As long as you aren’t in pain, it can wait.” He shot Allura a _look_ , and Lance would’ve gone ‘Ooooh! Tension!’ had they not been talking about a super-serious, near-death situation.

He would’ve normally sided with Allura, because they _should_ be talking about what happened. But Keith looked not dissimilar to a frightened animal, and Lance felt guilty just seeing him shake on the bed.

Keith tried immediately to sit back up, and Shiro’s _look_ moved from Allura to Keith. He withered under it and huffed, crossing his arms. 

Damn, Shiro was _powerful_.

“We can keep rotating to watch over him. He’s technically not required to be under watch anymore, but...” Allura rubbed her arm. “It’s not as if we’re doing anything else right now.”

“I’m fine with that,” Pidge said. Lance shrugged.

“I guess it’s my turn next, then?” Hunk asked.

“Yes, we’ll go by the same schedule as before.” Allura gestured from Hunk to Shiro. “And so forth, since Lance was last. Pidge, you can continue working on the red lion.”

_Beep, beep_. They all spun around to the machine, where Keith’s heart rate had gone from what Lance assumed was a somewhat-normal level to the top of the chart.

“Uh,” Lance said smartly, and turned to Keith. Keith was sitting on his back, but his fingers were grasping _hard_ onto the underside of the bed.

“Keith? What’s wrong? Are you in pain?” Allura was already reaching for a needle, and Lance held back a gag. It was the fastest way to get painkillers into their systems, and Lance had been on the receiving end of it a dozen times. That didn’t mean he liked seeing it.

“No, I’m—” Keith stammered, and he jerked when he saw what Allura was holding. “I’m fine, I just—Sorry. I just remembered something.”

A lightbulb went off in Lance’s head, just as Hunk whispered (loudly), “I don’t think he wants to talk about his lion, guys.”

Allura seemed to realize the same thing he did, and she backed off, shame crossing her face until it settled back into her usual calm. “I’m sorry, Keith,” she whispered, dropping the needle. “We can talk about that later.”

Shiro looked like he wanted to speak up, but he was cut off by Keith.

“Lance, can you stay please?” He was so quiet that Lance had to take a moment to understand his words.

Great, now everyone was staring at _him_. Lance laughed nervously, “Um, okay.” Maybe Keith remembered being pulled into Lance’s lion and wanted to talk about it. Since that was the only thing Lance could think of where Keith would rather _he_ stay with him over Shiro, or like, anyone else. 

“I guess I’ll... come later?” Hunk said with uncertainty. 

The entire atmosphere around them felt weird, like something was ever-so slightly off. Aside from the fact Keith had almost died, of course. 

It was partly because Shiro was being so quiet, watching Keith like he had something on his face other than a bunch of recovering scratches and burns. When Shiro thought stuff was strange, that’s when Lance knew shit was going to go down. And Shiro knew Keith better than anyone.

“Right, then.” Allura pressed the button to open the door to the hallway. “Page Hunk after you two are done speaking, please. I know you’ve been awake for a long time, Lance. It won’t help any of us to push ourselves into overexhaustion,” she said. “And, Keith, I’m glad you’re back with us. We were all worried for you. Please call any of us if you need anything. To talk, or... anything, really.”

Keith didn’t reply, not to Allura’s words, or when the others piled into a hug. Coran patted his head and Shiro buried his face against Keith’s hair for a moment, breathing in deeply, before he left without saying anything.

Okay. Weird. Weird. This was weird, right? He wasn’t the only one who thought this was weird? Keith had just woken up after almost dying and they were all just leaving him with _Lance_? What if he passed out again?

The door shut again, and the only noise in the room was the soft beeping of the monitor attached to Keith.

Keith had sat back up the moment Shiro left, his back propped up against the wall. Lance sat a foot away from the bed, picking at his nails. 

“So, um. You really scared us there,” Lance chuckled, though it wasn’t very genuine. “Sorry if I, like... frightened you, when I woke up. I was just sleeping, so when you started screaming, I was like ‘Woah!’”

Keith stared impassively at him, like he was waiting for Lance to say something specific.

“And then everyone came in, and they were all talking and stuff, and I was sitting here not knowing what was happening, and now here we are.” Shit, Lance had gone through that story really fast. Now he had nothing to talk about that didn’t involve Keith or his lion. “You’ll be happy to know that Blue forgives you for getting blood on her floor, by the way.” Lance attempted a feeble joke. Joking about Lance’s lion was fine, right? That wasn’t the same as Keith’s lion!

“Blue?” Keith echoed, his mouth forming the word like he didn’t know what the fuck Lance was talking about. “Blue... what?”

“Uhhhhh.” Lance forgot how to speak for a moment, just like Keith had apparently forgotten about their _lions_. “The... blue... lion?” he enunciated carefully, as if that would make Keith suddenly come to an understanding.

Lance really did not like how _confused_ Keith looked. He could understand Keith being confused right when he woke up, but now he was like properly awake now. And he didn’t like how obvious Keith was about being lost. Keith was normally the master of acting like nothing was wrong. Hell, he’d thrown himself into a series of ships ten times the size of him like it was nothing, despite how Lance knew no one could do that without being terrified inside. Not even Keith. Shiro should be here instead of him, talking Keith through... whatever thoughts (or lack of) he was going through, not Lance. 

He waited for Keith to be like ‘haha, psyche!’ and make fun of Lance’s dumb face. Not that he’d ever called Lance’s face dumb before, but he’d accept anything at this point.

Unfortunately, Keith did not say ‘psyche’, or start laughing.

“... Right,” Keith said uneasily instead.

Lance was _so_ far out of his depth here.

“Why did you, uh, want to speak to me?” Lance changed topics hesitantly, afraid of the answer he was going to get.

Keith seemed to think about this for a moment, his lips pressing together into a thin line. His hair fell over his face as he ran his hand over his thighs, and then his stomach.

“You’re still injured, you know. So there’s probably a lot of bruising. Four days in the pod won’t heal all the stuff you did to yourself.” 

As usual, Keith ignored him. _That_ wasn’t new. Keith pulled the thin shirt he was wearing away from his chest to stare down at what Lance assumed was a myriad of cuts. Not that he’d looked. He hadn’t been the one to initially bandage Keith up; by the time Lance was done freaking out and giving CPR, the others had already arrived to pick him up, and Lance stayed out of their way. He hadn’t even known if the CPR helped, which had only made his panic worsen. He hadn’t been in the right state of mind to help get Keith stable.

“Sorry, I’m... This is weird,” Lance said feebly, scratching the back of his head when Keith _still_ didn’t say anything. “I haven’t slept in like a day.”

“We’re on a ship, in space,” Keith said, not acknowledging Lance’s words at all, which may have been for the best. “You have a cut on your cheek.” His eyebrows furrowed.

“Um.” Lance reached for his cheek and brushed his fingers over the scar. “Yeah, I got it a few months ago, remember? Or, maybe you don’t remember, I dunno, your memory is probably all messed up. Sorry...” He really needed to stop apologizing, but honestly, he had no idea what else to say, and he really did feel bad for making Keith’s headache worsen. Or whatever it was that he was doing. 

It was something about Keith seeming so _vulnerable_ in front of him that compelled him to be gentler in return. He didn’t want Keith to think he was an actual asshole by being loud and irritating when he was recovering from almost dying. 

Keith lost interest in the cuts on his body and reached up to run his fingers through his hair slowly, like he couldn’t believe it was there at all.

“Your helmet stayed on, so your pretty face is perfectly intact.” Hey, that joke came out marginally better than the last one. Not that it was much of a joke in the first place. Calling Keith ‘pretty’ didn’t get the same rise out of him that it used to. In fact, one time Lance had said that and Keith had just said _thanks_. Ugh, Keith’s strange behavior was messing up Lance’s sense of humor.

Keith’s hands dropped to his lap, and he stayed slouched there for what felt like _years_. It was so long that Lance started counting the cotton swabs that were sitting in a box on the table beside Keith’s bed. 

“Lance,” Keith choked out his name and Lance jumped in his seat, his eyes as wide as saucers, because Keith sounded like he was _crying_. “Something is wrong.”

Yeah, no shit! Lance didn’t even know Keith had tear ducts! This was exactly why Shiro should’ve been the one to stay instead! Lance had no idea what to do with all the trauma Keith was probably going through right now.

“It’ll be fine!” Lance said as brightly as possible. “I know you probably feel like shit right now, and your memories are all jumbled, but... you’ll be fine, you weren’t that hurt, and you didn’t injure anything permanently.” Much. Probably. Lance didn’t know what oxygen deprivation did to the brain in terms of long-term effects, but it would _probably_ be fine. Keith was resilient.

He didn’t say that, though, because he had a feeling that Keith would not appreciate the compliment right now.

“How old am I?” Keith asked. He was holding his head in his hands, his fingers digging into the space above his eyelids.

“N... Nineteen?” Lance stuttered, and he cursed himself for sounding so uncertain. Oh, god. Why couldn’t he remember how old Keith was? He knew how old Keith was, he swore, but he was freaked out by the unexpected question. 

Oh, fuck. Did Keith have amnesia? How could he forget his _own_ age? Lance thought that only happened in movies and stuff. Wouldn’t that have showed up on the brain scans? Lance had been bored out of his mind the other day and had nothing better to do than scan Keith’s brain a thousand times, so he was pretty confident he would have caught that at least once.

Keith wiped furiously at his nose, his breathing coming out in small, short gasps. The beeping of the machine was back at full speed, and Lance sat uselessly as he watched the lines go up and down repeatedly.

“I—I think I should get Shiro or Allura.” Lance scrambled for his pager. Shit, where did he leave it? He spotted it on the floor, where Keith had passed out earlier. He went to grab it but Keith caught him by the wrist, his grip firm enough to make Lance pause.

“Lance.” Lance swore he’d heard Keith say his name in the past hour more times than he had said it the entire time they’d lived on this ship together. “I’m—I—”

He pulled Lance closer, making a noise half-way between a sob and a cough as he buried himself against Lance’s shoulder. His hair brushed against Lance’s cheek, still a bit damp from the pod, and he held onto Lance’s arms tightly, so tight that Lance could feel Keith’s nails digging into his skin from the other side of his shirt fabric.

“Keith, I’m...” Lance searched himself for the words to ask what the fuck was happening, without saying those words exactly. “W... What’s wrong? Just, tell me you aren’t in pain? Because I really think I should get someone else if that’s the case, I don’t know where to put the needle in and honestly it kind of freaks me out still because I’ve always hated needles and—”

“I’m not in pain!” Keith shouted, as loud as he could with how hoarse he was, and Lance froze. His tears were wetting Lance’s shoulder, and Lance clumsily rubbed back and forth on his back, unsure of to what level he was allowed to touch Keith. They weren’t the... touchy-feely sort of friends, normally. Keith wasn’t really like that with _anyone_ , as far as he knew. The most Lance had ever seen him do was hold Shiro’s hand, and even that was only for like, three seconds tops.

“Okay, then...” Lance said, not entirely convinced, but it wasn’t as if he could reach for his pager when Keith was clinging to him anyways. “Can I help you with... the thing... it is you’re crying over?” Did that sound rude? Fuck, it did, didn’t it? He didn’t mean it like that, he was just baffled.

While Keith was certainly easier to speak to nowadays than he was a year ago when they first started their journey, he wasn’t good enough at Keith-speak to be able to navigate _this_ situation. 

Keith lifted his head, swiping his finger underneath one of his eyes, like he was just realizing he was crying. 

“I need to ask you something,” Keith whispered, not letting Lance go. Lance wouldn’t wouldn’t even move if he could, because Keith was staring him down in a way that made him feel like he was rooted in place. Or that he would be a horrible person if he moved away. “And you can’t tell anyone, okay? No matter how weird it sounds.”

_What the fuck does that mean?!_ Lance thought, but instead of saying that to Keith, he swallowed hard and nodded.

“Are we together?” Keith asked, and Lance promptly short-circuited. “Are we a couple?”

He worked through those words, one by one, barely comprehending what Keith was implying. “Together, like. Together-together?” Lance had _no_ idea where this was going.

Keith nodded.

“No? I mean... um, no? Why would you... ask that?” Keith made a small noise that Lance couldn’t describe as anything other than as a _growl_ , and shoved Lance away. Lance stumbled back, hitting the table behind him with a small ‘oof’. Keith was pretty strong for a guy who almost died a few days ago.

“Fuck,” he heard Keith whisper. He was ripping off the IV drip attached to him, and Lance stood up hastily, standing in front of him.

“Hey! What the hell, you can’t just... please, what’s wrong? Can you at least tell me what you’re thinking? Why would you... ask that?” Lance spread out his arms in front of Keith, blocking him from the door, which Keith was eyeing over his shoulder.

He looked back at Lance, very slowly, and suddenly, Lance felt like he was looking at a different person than Keith. He couldn’t explain it, if someone asked him to describe it, but Keith’s eyes looked different, like the _way_ he was staring at Lance was different than usual—

“Keith, c’mon,” Lance urged, trying not to betray how hard he was panicking. “You’re still injured! Even if you aren’t in pain, clearly something is wrong, you can’t leave, Allura will _kill_ me.”

“I don’t even know who that _is_!” Keith yelled, and tried to shove Lance back again. Fortunately, Lance kind of figured that was coming and caught himself pretty quickly. Keith wasn’t too steady on his feet from not walking for a few days, and he winced when he tried to take a step.

“What does that mean?!” Lance shouted back. Keith looked _mad_ , his eyebrows pushed together and his mouth slightly open. Oh, Lance had seen _that_ look before, for sure. Usually directed at him, in fact. But it had never been this intense.

“I don’t—” Keith started, and he tried to take another step. His legs gave out on him, and Lance caught him as he stumbled. “Don’t touch me!” Like Keith hadn’t been the one to hug him a minute ago, but Lance relented and let go of him. He didn’t want Keith to do anything stupid out of alarm.

“Okay, okay!” Lance didn’t move, though. While he didn’t think Keith’s legs were working well enough to actually make a run for the door, he wouldn’t put it past him to try it anyways. 

Think, Lance, think. What was Keith freaking out over? He’d asked their ages, and he’d asked if he and Lance were _together_ , and he’d said he didn’t know who Allura was...

Fuck. Was there such thing as like, warped amnesia? Amnesia where you forgot some stuff, and replaced it with other memories? Because that seemed like the only slightly-rational explanation for _that_ series of questions. The amnesia thing was seeming more and more reasonable, which was a major problem in itself.

Keith glared at him and Lance squinted back. They were both out of breath. “Keith...”

He had to be wrong. There was something he was missing. He’d watched too many shitty romantic dramas in the past few months. 

But Keith was crying, even if it was softer than before, and Lance had never seen him cry before. Not even a single tear before! Keith was _seriously_ messed up, beyond just him not feeling well.

“You aren’t Lance,” Keith whispered, shaking his head. Lance choked on his own spit and attempted not to visibly freak out. 

“Keith, just tell me what you’re thinking. We can work this out,” Lance pleaded, as if he was talking to a child. Keith bit his lip.

“I—I think—” Keith swallowed. “I think something happened, when I crashed,” he whispered.

“Yeah...?” Lance prompted. “You mean, aside from how you almost died?”

“You’re going to call me crazy,” Keith mumbled, and Lance was two seconds away from throttling Keith. He would’ve, if Keith wasn’t a) injured, and b) having some kind of panic attack.

“I won’t,” Lance promised. He couldn’t promise that he wouldn’t do so in his head, but he wouldn’t say it out _loud_.

“This isn’t—my home,” Keith said, glancing around the room, and Lance somehow just _knew_ from the way he was staring at everything that he was as honest as he could be. “Last thing I knew, I was at the Garrison, and now I’m...”

“The Garrison?!” Lance sputtered. As in, _the_ Garrison? The Garrison that they hadn’t been back to in a year? The one that Keith had been kicked out of?

“I don’t know where I am,” Keith said quietly. His tears were slowly beginning to ebb away, but that didn’t make Lance feel any better when he sounded and looked so lost. “We aren’t nineteen yet, I’ve never been to space, I’m not... Where am I?” he asked. And fuck, as if Lance knew how to answer that. 

As gently as possible, Lance pushed Keith back onto the bed. He went surprisingly easy, sitting back down. Lance didn’t know how to reattach the IV, so he didn’t. His own hands were shaking, and he tried to hide them from Keith.

“Who are you?” Keith continued, and Lance’s heart dropped right to the floor. He glanced at Lance like he had all the answers, which Lance definitely _didn’t_ , and they stayed in silence until Keith started to cry again and Lance attempted to calm down his beating heart, or else he might end up in the medical bay too.

Lance did not have enough brainpower left in him to digest what he was hearing. One, because he was running on negative hours of sleep. And two, because he just had no idea what the fuck Keith was trying to tell him.

He tried to run over the facts Keith had told him. That he was sure he was in another world, because this one clearly wasn’t his own. That he was from a place where he and Lance were dating, and Shiro had never been captured by the Galra, and they were all living happily at the Garrison, of all places. Nope, no matter how much he recounted Keith’s words, none of it made sense.

Hunk had paged him, asking him if Lance wanted to sleep yet, and Keith had nearly broke the pager while yelling at Lance not to leave. Lance said as calmly as he could to Hunk that he was fine, and that he and Keith were watching a movie. He wasn’t sure if Hunk bought it, but apparently he trusted Lance enough not to come. Keith had breathed a loud sigh of relief and went back to curling up against the wall.

“You don’t believe me,” Keith murmured, and Lance felt _guilty_ , even though he knew he shouldn’t. Clearly, Keith had hit his head a little too hard when Lance had pulled him into Blue. But it was the fact Keith _thought_ he was telling the truth, and that Lance didn’t believe him, that made him feel guilty.

“I... It’s not that, I just...”

“I sound crazy,” Keith continued. And, well, Lance could agree with that, though he didn’t say that out loud.

“N... No, just...”

Keith glared at him.

“Okay, maybe a little,” Lance relented. “I really, really think we should get Shiro in here, at least. He’ll know what to do.”

“ _No_ ,” Keith snapped, and his tone left no room for argument. “No one can know. I’ll... I’ll figure this out by myself.”

“You can’t be serious.” Lance clutched onto the fabric of his pants to stop himself from biting his nails. “You think you’ve traveled between _universes_ , you can’t keep that to yourself! You’re...” Lance was trying to talk without completely dismissing Keith, but it was really, really hard. “You’re right, something is... wrong. We need to tell someone, so we can fix it.”

“No,” Keith said, as stubborn as ever, and Lance groaned.

“Keith...”

“You’re not my boyfriend, I don’t need to listen to you.”

Lance had never thought he’d hear the word _boyfriend_ come out of Keith’s mouth, and especially not in relation to him. 

Lance gaped like a fish, then closed his jaw when he realized how stupid he probably looked with it hanging open. Not that Keith was watching him anymore; he was doing everything to avoid that, but still.

“Can you tell me what you... remember?” 

“I was piloting a ship on Earth. I crashed. I woke up here,” Keith said shortly.

“Keith,” Lance grit his teeth. “How am I supposed to help you if you won’t explain things properly?”

“I already told you!” Keith raised his voice again, which only made Lance feel worse, because Keith sounded like he was going to choke after every sentence. He could only imagine how bad his throat hurt. “I live at the Garrison. I’ve never been to space. We’re roommates, and we’re together, which obviously _disgusts_ you—”

“I never said that! Hey, tell me when I said that?” Lance said, forming fists with his hands. Why was Keith always so _stubborn_? Even when his memories were all messed up, he was still the same Keith. 

“You’re supposed to be my boyfriend, Lance. I can read you pretty well.”

“Okay, then you should be able to tell that I’m also freaking out right now! Not out of disgust, but because you’re... acting weird, and you’re injured, and you almost died, and clearly these things all have to do with each other!” Lance waved wildly at Keith. “I’m _worried_ for you, asshat!”

Keith took a deep, shuddering breath, and took a few moments to glare at the wall before he mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

“I... It’s okay?” Lance stumbled over his words, not used to Keith apologizing so easily. 

Keith seemed to notice that, and he laughed without any humour in it. “You sound so surprised,” he whispered. 

“Of course I am, this is... weird. But I’m not disgusted, I swear, or whatever you think I am. I’m just confused, and worried. But I don’t know how to help, I’m not...” Shiro, he wanted to say.

“Shiro?” Keith finished.

Ugh. Keith _did_ know him well, huh? They _had_ been living together for a while now, so that didn’t tell him much other than that Keith hadn’t forgotten him completely in replacement of some other Lance that was living in his memories.

“I asked you to stay because I thought that...” Keith shrugged. “I don’t know what I thought.”

“... Yeah. I get it.” He didn’t really get it, but he got what Keith was saying, which he thought was good enough.

Reason number one: he thought Lance was his boyfriend, which meant he trusted him.

Reason number two: Keith was undoubtedly freaking out inside; if he was acting so panic-stricken on the outside, that had to mean he was having it a thousand times worse in his own mind. 

Lance continued, “I just... it’s... it’s not possible, you know? That kind of stuff doesn’t exist. I mean, maybe it does, but... not that we know of.”

Keith lowered his face against his hands, curled up underneath the heavy blanket that Lance had dug out for him. 

“It has to,” Keith mumbled. “It has to. This isn’t my home. I’m just telling you what I remember, Lance. I swear.”

Lance dragged his hands down his face, groaning. “I know,” he mumbled, as much as he didn’t want to. Why would Keith make up such an insane lie? He wouldn’t, naturally. The only person who would ever pull such a dumb prank was _Lance_. 

The worst part was, Keith was trying to sneak glances at him, silently looking to him for help. He thought that Keith believed he was being subtle, but he could physically feel the weight of Keith’s eyes landing on him.

“I don’t know what you want me to do,” Lance mumbled, miserable. He’d never felt so useless in his life. “We _need_ to tell the others.”

“No!” Keith said for the nth time. Lance was beginning to think that was Keith’s favourite word.

“Why not? They’re our—they’re _your_ friends, you said it yourself! You remember enough about them to know that. They won’t make fun of you.”

Keith folded his arms over his chest in what Lance figured was supposed to be defiance, but it didn’t appear particularly intimidating with how defeated he seemed at the same time.

“I _told_ you. I’ll figure it out myself.”

“You’re going to figure out how you either lost your memories or traveled into a parallel universe. One of those things. By yourself,” Lance deadpanned. 

Keith’s expression fell. “Well, no, but...” 

“Yeah, exactly. They’re going to find out eventually, anyways.” Lance didn’t want to sound annoyed, but he was fucking _exhausted_ , and he just wanted Keith to get some common sense and agree with him. He knew that was (legitimately) too much to ask, given the situation, but could the universe throw him a bone here? The more he thought about how shitty Keith likely felt right now, the more shitty _he_ felt in turn.

“I... I need to think things through, first. I wouldn’t know what to say to them,” Keith said. The way his voice wavered told Lance that Keith knew that was a pretty weak argument.

“You just told me a bunch of stuff! Just tell them that!” Lance gestured wildly. 

“No,” Keith said, going back to glaring daggers at the wall, and Lance’s shoulders fell. “I don’t mean to be difficult, Lance, I just... This is a lot to take in.”

Yeah, that was an understatement. It was a lot for him, too. Lance pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. You can sleep on it, and... and maybe that’ll help, somehow. For both of us. Maybe you’ll wake up tomorrow and everything will be fine. But if it’s not, then...” 

Keith held his breath, but nodded.

“Are you leaving?” Keith asked.

“I really need to sleep, Keith. I don’t think I’ll be much use to you right now. This conversation has kinda... exhausted me, and I’m not awake enough right now to deal with it.” Lance sighed. “I know you want me to be here, I'll try and fall asleep as fast as possible so I can wake up as soon as possible too, but...” 

“... It’s fine. I don’t want you to lose sleep over me,” Keith whispered. “Although I guess you’ve been doing that anyways.”

Lance smiled with as much encouragement as he could. “We’ll figure it out, okay? So don’t worry.”

“If you think I can _not_ worry, then you aren’t understanding what I’m saying.” Okay, well then. A bit more aggression there than Lance had expected. Keith deflated. “... Sorry. I need some time to myself. You guys are supposed to be watching over me, right? Tell Hunk I don’t want to talk.”

“You can just tell him yourself—” Lance shut up when Keith groaned. “Alright, I’ll tell him. But when I come back tomorrow you better be prepared to tell them what you think!” Unless he was magically cured, which Lance was still lowkey holding out for.

Lance grabbed his pager and his bag, readying to call for Hunk, but Keith cleared his throat.

“Huh?”

Keith skimmed over Lance’s form, then the wall behind him, and then back at Lance. He rubbed his wrist while his cheeks got increasingly red, and Lance waited until Keith muttered, “Nevermind.”

“Um.” Lance’s fingers twitched at his sides. “Right. Just... I swear, Keith, we’ll figure it out,” he repeated, without the ‘don’t worry’ this time. At least Keith didn’t seem mad at that. After a very long second, he shifted closer to the bed and gave Keith the most awkward hug of all time.

Keith made it a point to not stare at him as Lance left the room. Hunk answered the pager after one beep, seemingly excited to get his turn to watch over Keith. Lance knew how much Hunk had missed him; he wondered how Keith would deal with it, if he would pretend to be happy, or... Ugh. He didn’t even know if Keith would be able to last in silence until tomorrow. Maybe they’d all figure it out before then.

Either way, he was too muddled to think properly, and he really, really wanted to crawl into his bed and pass out. Not just because he was tired as fuck, but because the thought of drifting off into his dreams seemed really nice right now. Very unlike the reality they had been living in for the past week. Real life was becoming a bit of a nightmare.

He was pretty sure Keith was going to ask to _hug_ him, which Lance could not deal with right now. A real, proper hug, that was, not the one Lance had given him. Keith had wanted a hug between... lovers. Normally Lance would gloat over Keith asking to hug him, and he would’ve gladly thrown himself at Keith and hung onto him like a leech. But given what Keith had said about him, about them... it didn’t seem right for him to let that happen.

Lance was not embarrassed. He really wasn’t; he had way more important things to worry about than the fact Keith had looked at him like he was Jesus’ freaking kid and knew all the answers. But out of all the things Keith had told him (aside from the whole ‘I’m actually a teenager and live at the Garrison’ thing), them being together was by far and above what Lance’s brain was deciding to fixate on.

It was just so out of character. Lance ran through all of his and Keith’s interactions in the past few weeks, but he was pretty damn sure that nothing had indicated Keith was harbouring some secret crush on him. So why would Keith’s brain make him think that? 

When he got to his room, he went straight for the bathroom and splashed a heavy amount of cold water on his face. It wet his shirt, but he didn’t really care; it was already damp from Keith’s crying.

Nevermind, scrap the dating thing. Keith crying was slightly weirder, if not only because Keith always made it a huge point to _not_ cry in front of them. He couldn’t imagine Keith losing control of himself like that. If he hadn’t cried when losing Shiro, he didn’t think Keith would cry over anything.

But on the other hand, Lance couldn’t really understand what it was to be like in Keith’s position, so maybe he was being rude by assuming Keith wouldn’t cry, because Keith had emotions too, right? Was him crying somehow related to his fucked up memories?

Lance was definitely overthinking this on way too little rest. 

Tomorrow, they’d tell the others about Keith’s freaky amnesia and they’d start figuring out what caused it, and how to fix it. Between all of them, they would be able to figure it out. 

Thankfully, his body’s need for sleep won out over his anxiety, and he drooled blissfully into his pillow for a few hours, dreaming about him and Keith riding an elephant in space and a bunch of other very not-stressful things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first things first, this author's note is ridiculously long and you don't need to read it if you haven't read crossroads, but i thought i'd explain stuff to the people who did.
> 
> so i know know there's going to be a few people who see this notification and do a double take at the author name and then the summary and then the series and be like what the fuck???
> 
> story time:
> 
> i started writing this fic in 2017, a little while after i finished writing crossroads. stuff happened irl, and i moved on from vld (and pretty much all my online fandoms). i lost my urge to write, and i never checked my google docs because looking at all my unfinished fics made me sad. well, then quarantine hit and i was bored as hell, so a few weeks ago, i was looking through my unfinished fics and found this file. over the past few years, i've gotten countless requests for this fic, aka the companion piece i promised roughly 341234 times in the author's notes of crossroads. yes, that is entirely my fault for saying i would post it and then i didn't... but better late than never, right?
> 
> anyways, i have no idea if people still read vld fic or what, but i hope at least a few people enjoy this! i'm kinda nervous to post this because it's been so long and my writing skills have probably declined a lot lol but i figured that it was better to post it tentatively than not post it at all.
> 
> somewhat unrelated aside: i had to reread crossroads to keep writing this, because i'd forgotten a lot of details of it. a) it was extremely weird to read something that i wrote and not remember it, so it was like i was reading a new fic? i was shocked at my own plot twists? b) i corrected a very major typo (just one word) in one of the later chapters that completely changed the tone of the scene. i can't believe that typo stayed there for almost 4 years!!! if anyone can find out what it is i'll write you a fic as a reward lmao.
> 
> of course, comments and any encouragement are appreciated! a large portion of this fic is already written, but i'll be editing it and rewriting as i go along, so i can't promise when updates will be. they will come eventually, though. i swear. (though i would understand if people don't take my word, given that it took me 4 years to post this fic...)
> 
> sorry for the long author's note; thank you for reading, and see you next chapter!
> 
> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/manamune)


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